Antianeira
by Thethuthinnang
Summary: BtVS.300. When he was thirteen, Apollo Far Striker sent him a dream.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 300 belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Frank Miller.

When he was thirteen, Apollo Far Striker sent him a dream.

He understood little of it. There had been a tower, a battle, and people whose features and dress were stranger than anything he had ever seen. They had spoken in a language he did not know, and the fighting had been desperate and merciless. Then the air had rent apart with a noise and a light that was like hearing and seeing pain, and evil had come into the world through that wound space.

The one thing he had seen clearly, the one thing that he remembered about that dream that did not fade and could not be forgotten, was her.

Her hair was more gold than gold. Her eyes were greener than the Egyptians' malachite.

He would remember her falling for the rest of his life.

When he woke, he lay sweating in his bedroll, unnoticed by the other boys as they slept. But he was not alone in the dark, for Apollo Loxias whispered in his ear.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 300 belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Frank Miller.

When his half-brother Cleomenes died, they wanted him to marry Gorgo, his half-brother's daughter. She was as beautiful as Helen must have been, and simply to look at her was to fall half in love. He could not have made a finer match if he had searched all of Sparta for ten years.

He refused.

They called him an imbecile. He told them nothing.

The whisper went around that he was mad, as Cleomenes had been. His half-brothers came around to talk to him, and they called him brainsick and a cretin for rejecting a girl like Gorgo. He said nothing.

Gorgo said nothing. She only looked at him, a single flashing look of her dark eyes that stripped him to the bone and almost—_almost_—conquered even his will, before she turned silently away and, not once looking back, married Dorieus.

The council of elders had him brought before them and charged him for dereliction of his duty as a Spartan to marry and produce sons. He told them that he certainly did intend to marry and he certainly did intend to produce sons. He was just waiting for his wife to get there.

Though they questioned and interrogated him, that was all he would say. When they finally let him go, it was more out of confusion than anything else.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 300 belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Frank Miller.

Then they called him god-touched.

The ephors were consulted, and he was made to climb the mountain. Yet when she was given the question, the ephors standing nearby to interpret, the Oracle did not mumble or speak in terms that only those trained in the mysteries of Apollo Pythios could understand. She stood up, opened her eyes, looked at him, and said, in a voice both terrible and glorious, "Wait, King of Sparta. She comes."

The ephors prostrated themselves in terror. He, feeling the eyes of the god upon him, fell to his knees.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 300 belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Frank Miller.

They made him king. The Far Striker himself had called him a king of Sparta, and the ephors backed him over his half-brothers. He became a king, despite being unmarried, and it was said that he had always been meant to be king. He was a war hero, a peerless warrior in a race of warriors, a true son of Sparta, and his bloodline was that of Herakles. And, too, he had killed the wolf, all those long years ago.

People began to talk about what the Oracle had said. _She comes._ Apollo himself had promised him a wife, and the talk was rampant in the streets, in the _palaestra_, in the mouths of Peers and Gentlemen-Rankers and citizens and helots alike.

The talk spread throughout Greece, and then to all the cities, from one end of the world to the other. Many did not take it seriously, derided the Spartans for being so superstitious. Some thought it a trick, though to its purpose, none could tell. The Athenians, in particular, loudly ridiculed the Agiad king of Sparta to whoever would listen.

But everyone watched.

Everyone waited.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 300 belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Frank Miller.

It was a hot, bright day when the Egyptian came.

He brought with him a man who spoke the Hellenic tongue, and through him he asked for the permission to sell a slave in Sparta.

They would have denied him, perhaps sent him away with a fine for wasting time with such idiocy, but for what sort of slave he said he had.

The Egyptian claimed to have caught one of the Antianeira.

Antianeira. Those Who Fight Like Men.

He was a mariner merchant, he said, hailing from Egyptian Thebes. He brought with him a contingent of guards, and they carried between them a covered litter, with walls of wood and a door in one side that was latched shut. A small opening had been cut into the door, but it was too small to let pass anything but air. They put this down in the middle of the square, where there was a wide open space.

There was also a boy. He was small, hardly more than a babe, and the Egyptian kept him close.

When they came into the square, almost the entire population of Sparta had gathered, citizens and slaves together. He was there as well, the captain of his personal bodyguards at his side. Most of the bodyguards themselves were there, as hot to see Androktones as anyone else. In the crowd, he caught sight of Gorgo, standing beside her husband.

The Egyptian stood to the side and put the boy in front of him. He had a dagger in his hand, and this he put at the boy's neck.

He had tried to sell the girl in every port he had been in, and failed. She was violent; she had broken the bones of anyone who tried to touch her. She did not understand the language; she could not be made to learn. Yet to kill her would be such a waste—she was so unique, so beautiful, so young, and he had put so much money into her. A woman warrior, one of the Antianeira, of whom no one had ever known anything but legends and stories, and what else could she be?. He had finally been told, by a Greek, that the only place that might have a buyer for a thing like her was Sparta.

Desperate, he had come.

The guards, tall Nubians armed with spears and shields, looked distinctly nervous. They looked at each other and at the locked door of the litter, and even, muttering together, seemed to be arguing who should go to open it.

Under the watching eyes of the Spartans, the Egyptian seemed no less nervous than his hired guards. He shouted at them in their own tongue, and then, with extreme reluctance, the door of the litter was unlatched and opened.

A small girl, dressed in a boy's _chiton_, crawled out and stood up.

Her hair was tangled and unwashed, but under the dirt it shone more gold than gold. Her eyes, as they went straight to the merchant and the boy to whose neck he held his knife, were greener than the malachite the Egyptian wore on his eyes.

He felt the hand of the Archer on his shoulder, heard the whispering in his ear.

The girl turned, as if she had heard her name called, and looked at him.

He heard nothing. He felt nothing. He could only see her, and he knew that he had come out of the crowd and into the square, and that a silence had fallen over everything. All eyes were on him as he came to stand before her, towering over the girl.

He remembered what Apollo Loxias had shown him that night all those years ago, and what the Striker From Afar had told him as he lay, gasping for breath.

"I am Leonidas," he said now, "and I have been waiting for you."

He held out his hand.

She looked at him, and she was uncertain.

Now, this, the thing the Archer had whispered into his ear just now.

"Buffy," he said.

Her face paled, grew bloodless. Her eyes, wide, fixed on his face. She trembled, though not with fear.

And she put her hand in his.


End file.
